The present invention improves the gear change between a gear with a smaller diameter and a gear with a larger diameter and vice versa. In the present description and in the accompanying claims, “gear change” is intended as the operation through which the transmission chain of the bicycle passes from a condition in which it engages one gear to a condition in which the chain engages another gear of the same gear assembly. A gear change always requires the chain shifting from one gear to another which may be adjacent or not to one another. In the description and in the claims the term “upwards shifting” indicates the operation of gear change from a gear with a smaller diameter to a gear with a larger diameter and the term “downwards shifting” indicates the operation of gear change from a gear with a larger diameter to a gear with a smaller diameter.
The present invention has particular application to the front bicycle gear assembly but it may also be applied to the rear sprocket gear assembly. Within the present specification, the term “gear” means an element suitable to engage a bicycle chain, such as a toothed chain wheel or a toothed sprocket wheel.
Especially in the field of racing bicycles, it is particularly important to have gear changes performed smoothly and without wrenching shifting operations, both upwards and downwards, in all riding conditions. Various constructional contrivances have already been proposed with the purpose of favouring gear change, for example in relation to the form of the gear teeth, to shifting aid means including rivets which project axially from the plane of the gear, or to reciprocal positioning of the gears.